Maps

This is a really interesting article about how Twitter can be used to make maps here. If a tweet is geotagged it can be used as a sort of choropleth map. Love the city maps especially and it would be great to print them out for our walls in our apartment.

I’ve actually slowed up on Twitter use due to the amount of irrelevance I was beginning to see. Prefer Google+ now.

This interesting map from FedEx takes an interesting Topological look at a variety of development statistics. I like the Happiness Index and the fact that Costa Rica is one of the happiest countries in the world. It might have something to do with the fact that it has no armed forces. Having lived in San Jose and worked as a teacher there for a couple of years and had a truly amazing time, I can really agree with the idea of ‘Pura Vida’ which roughly translates as ‘Full of Life’. The picture below is of a sloth on electrical lines in the beautiful village of Cahuita. No link really but it reminds me so much of the laid back lifestyle!

Really like this new BBC website, How Big Really, which gives a sense of scale to the verbatim News Reports we both see and here on the news. By entering your postcode you can get an idea of how big a natural disaster, environmental disaster, depths, etc,.. Worth checking out the How Many Really too

Found this beautiful and quirky species distribution map from one of my stumble links. Love the Penguin in Antarctica. IF anyone knows where I can buy one of these I’d be really interested. Maybe the brilliant Worldmapper could do one for endangered species with the relevant countries big or small depending on how much at risk each of the animals are.

My father has an amazing ability to be an expert in all fields. His latest line of expertise is that of orchard man and apple variety connoisseur (Cornish varieties a speciality). This year has seen a bumper crop and has led to the first Ruses Mill scrumpy pressing. When asked about the location of each tree in the orchard, a dusty soft back book was produced and inside the front cover a ‘detailed’ topological map produced… See below. Although it lacks a scale, compass and underlined title it serves its purpose perfectly.

Ruses Mill Apple Map

So what about the varieties grown?

Orleans ReinetteOrleans Reinette

Ribston PippinRibston Pippin

Egremont RussetEgremont Russet

May QueenMay Queen

Cornish GillyflowerCornish Gillyflower

Cornish AromaticCornish Aromatic

Ribston PippinRibston Pippin

Egremont RussetEgremont Russet

Ruses Mill Apple MapRuses Mill Apple Map

The Guardian article here is in line with his current thinking on all things apple related.

The UK Met Office Hadley Centre with a variety of other agencies has produced a fantastic Climate Change layer for Google Earth. It looks at a change of 4 degrees on climate change and their associated possible impacts. Like all climate change mapos there is a degree of uncertainty but if I was to trust any scientific body to produce an accurate forecast then the Met Office would be top of my list. You can download the KML file here but you will need to have Google Earth installed first. Good video on Channel 4 news about the layer here.

The largest verified impact crater on Earth, Vredefort Crater in South Africa. Measuring a staggering 250 – 300 km (155 – 186 miles) across, this crater was formed over 2 billion years ago by an asteroid estimated 10 km (6 miles) in size.

Google Sightseeing is a great blog which in its own words states ‘ why bother seeing the world for real’ when you can use Google Earth! Well I guess it helps reduce the impact to the environment as a consequence of flying to these locations.

Anyway this blog posting has a great range of impact craters to explore

Great maps here showing continents and countries based on their population size. This is an example of a topological map where it only shows a certain type of information disregarding a normal scale. Australia looks like a sqaushed fly appropriately!